


what comes after

by hookedonsunshine



Series: what's left of our humanity [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, alternative title, and the fact that he seems to be very pro-beholding right now, another post-165 piece !, basically i have been thinking a LOT about the implications of jon's new powers, idk man stuff has been too happy for these kids and i Do Not Trust It, that is NOT how this usually goes for them, you me and your friend the giant eyeball who sees all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:34:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24045991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hookedonsunshine/pseuds/hookedonsunshine
Summary: It's a non-traditional sort of honeymoon.Martin contemplates the inevitable end of their pilgrimage, and all that he would do for love of Jon.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, The Beholding/Jonathan Sims, kind of - Relationship
Series: what's left of our humanity [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734559
Comments: 4
Kudos: 71





	what comes after

“I don’t want to know.” Jon responds once more, joy-filled fear an ever-present undertone. A dull sort of ache, which Martin knows he once felt as terror but is now so commonplace as to barely register, curls in his stomach each and every time Jon rattles off the response.

The Archivist _always_ wants to know. It's Jon who doesn't.

Jon doesn't want Martin to know either.

He wants to escape that judgement.

  
And it’s a non-traditional sort of honeymoon they have going on here, as they traverse the screams of their ex-neighbours with the same kind of objectivity and detachment that one might have when observing mistreated animals in a particularly shoddy zoo. Oh _sure_ , it’s terrible, an awful thing, they’ll put in a complaint (and with the way Jon is now, their benefactor might even listen). But after it all, they leave, they move on, it’s just another cassette in Jon’s pocket that no one other than the great eye looming above them will ever care to listen to.

  
They’re moving through, but for once, they aren’t a part of these stories. Not like Sasha and Tim with the Stranger, not like Martin with the Corruption, with the Lonely. Not like everything that Jon once was, constantly entangled with each entity that emerged from the woodwork, to scar him, mark him, and withdraw (occasionally brushing against one of his friends on the way).

For once, _they_ are the ones who get to watch. And it’s a relief. He wonders if that means he’s lost a little more of his humanity too, that he doesn’t feel the same cutting empathy and need to help which once defined him. Right now, he’s content to simply be with Jon. To enjoy their time together, however perverse that might be, as they continue their journey (their _pilgrimage,_ the word hisses in his mind, and he knows it to be apt.)

Even despite a niggling worry (and it’s not _just_ a worry, not really – Martin might not be an avatar, but the eye has touched him all the same. He’s aware of the difference between paranoia and denial. He knows the truth as well as Jon, when it’s shown to him).

Because right now, they aren’t the victims. They don’t even come close. In this strange new world, they are, for all intents and purposes, _blessed_.

Martin doesn’t remember Elias ( _Jonah_ ) being even half as strong as Jon is now. The eye never answered his call with such blatant favouritism, never carried out favours for Elias simply because he _asked politely._

Jon does more than just _feed_ the Eye. He completes it. Far outweighs the whole institute, Elias included, in its estimation, Martin suspects.

_‘I don’t want to know._ ’ Jon responds. But he does know. And the eye (of course) knows. It is just Martin who is in the dark. He chooses to be. The carousel is Gone, and Martin did not turn around to see how it happened. (Jon faced away with him, but Martin knows he watched all the same). And, while he knows that he is happier like that, that he wouldn’t _want_ to be drawn into its gaze anymore than he already has been, he can't help it.

He feels a little like a third wheel.

Which is stupid. He is Jon’s, utterly and entirely, and more significantly, Jon is _his_. He knows that now.

He is Jon’s and Jon is his, but the Archivist belongs to something else entirely.

And Jon, before-Jon, nearly-unmarked-Jon (Mr Spider aside), would have rejected the eye out of hand. Even as its hold grew, as it screamed in hunger and sapped his strength like a nicotine patch while it starved, he was never _happy_ when he acquiesced.

But now Martin hears the shimmer of glee which underlies his words as he sics Beholding on not-Sasha, the pleasure as he watches her and Watches her. There’s no rejection there, not even hesitation. He knows what he has become, and for once, he accepts it.

Elias is, of course, the enemy. Martin shudders. He wouldn’t want to be the man (the _monster_ ) right now, in the panopticon, waiting as his god’s favourite trudges towards him with bloodlust in his heart. Perhaps he is hoping that Beholding will keep them both; that his relationship with Jon as Elias will be enough to save him; that he can somehow _lie_ to Jon to convince him he’s worth keeping alive.

They both know there is _no more lying_ when it comes to Jon.

But what comes after?

Because there’s a truth that Martin knows. Jon says he wants to put the world right, to remove the fears and make them safe. Perhaps he even believes it. Perhaps the only one that can lie to the Archivist is the Archivist himself. It would be nice, were that true. That Jon could somehow grant himself that false comfort.

Vengeance is driving them towards the panopticon. Towards Elias, towards Jonah beneath him, towards the man who took _everything_ from them, played them like fools, tore apart their happiness and their friends and a world that had almost become safe.

Martin knows Jonah will not survive this. God might not play favourites, but gods do nothing but. Magnus is a dead man walking, in more ways than one, and Martin relishes the bitter pleasure at the knowledge (because the Martin who would have recoiled, horrified, at murder, is long since dead too).

But after he is dead, and Jon is left to rebuild their world, to manufacture it back to it’s safe, warm, pre-Beholding state? A world where the power that courses through his veins is gone, the pleasure of being _known_ is absent? In order to save people who only exist in abstract concepts and cryptic statements to the two of them now?

Well.

_I don’t want to know._

Martin thinks Jon knows. Martin does not know. He is not the Eye, nor the Archivist. He is as much Lonely as he is Beholding. He cannot see what the two of them share, in their strange intimacy. But he _suspects._

They’re here in this distorted honeymoon, _finally_ in control, _finally_ with a modicum of power over the forces which have toyed with them for so long.

Beholding loves the Archivist, and the Archivist is becoming more attached with every day.

Jon loves Martin with all his heart, and Martin loves in return.

What will he do, after Elias, after Jonah is dead? What will happen to this strange love triangle of theirs? Because Martin thinks it likely that there’s only one situation where all three of them come out unscathed.

He knows what Jon doesn’t want to. (He knows that Jon knows it anyway.)

He knows what Jon doesn't say. (And he knows what he’d say if Jon asked)

(He knows it’s the mark of the Lonely that’s influencing his answer)

(And Martin knows something else).

(He doesn’t care)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this really quickly but had to get it out! It's a partner piece to Rewards of Being Known, from Martin's perspective, because right now i am so so intruiged by how powerful Jon seems to be? It's very unlike the series to put in him a position where he has both knowledge and control, so I'm excited (and apprehensive lol) to see where they take it! 
> 
> I suspect it will not be a good place for our boys.
> 
> (also not proof read lol so please let me know if u see any errors)
> 
> comments and kudos always appreciated!


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